


Imaginary Horticulture 101

by skiron



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Magical Tattoos, cecil with briar tattoos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 05:53:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896586
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiron/pseuds/skiron
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t, for example, know where they came from, or how exactly they manage to grow and bloom and drop their petals without leaving the confines of Cecil’s skin. He doesn’t know why his equipment registers that there is definitely plant life in what simply looks like shifting ink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Imaginary Horticulture 101

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this post](http://callmekitto.tumblr.com/post/56191171849/i-dont-wish-to-alarm-you-carlos-began-barely), and heaps of Briar!Tattooed Cecil headcanons. Mostly for Rachel.
> 
> The lovely [Shimon](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Shimon/pseuds/Shimon) has translated this work into Russian! You can find that text [right here.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/2624786)

Two weeks after he’s moved in, Carlos thinks he understands how it works. He knows that the upstairs neighbors will be sure to keep their satanic chants within normal waking hours if he bakes them fresh apple-cinnamon muffins on the weekends, and he’s gotten used to the old lady down the hall shrieking after every third word in a conversation. He knows that Cecil spends mornings sleeping in and afternoons editing down stories for the show before going into the studio around five (he also knows that if he strategically times his lunch break from the lab, he can arrive home in time for yawning Cecil with bedhead, which is a beautiful sight he can’t stand to miss, so much so that he has cut more than one team debriefing short in order to be on time).

He still doesn’t understand the tattoos, though.  


He knows some things: he knows by tracing Cecil’s jaw he can make a line of bluebells blossom over his shoulder and extend along his collarbone. He knows if he’s surprised by a kiss, Cecil blushes pink down to his shoulders, no matter how many times he’s done it before, and tiny purple daisies creep around to the front of his neck. He knows if he runs a hand along his spine, a trail of clean white roses follows it, their blossoms swaying slightly in a nonexistent breeze as Cecil lets out a sigh of contentment. But there are still things he doesn’t know.

He doesn’t, for example, know where they came from, or how exactly they manage to grow and bloom and drop their petals without leaving the confines of Cecil’s skin. He doesn’t know why his equipment registers that there is definitely plant life in what simply looks like shifting ink. Well, not simply, since in his experience ink hardly shifts at all.

Cecil doesn’t seem to share his questions.

"I got them when I was a kid,” he says with a shrug at the dinner table one night, over slices of Big Rico’s pizza. “I don’t really remember where…or when for that matter.” The fact that he isn’t remotely concerned about where the ink comes from surprises Carlos, but only a little. Cecil seems to take most astonishing happenings in a stride, after all.

One afternoon he’s home early from the lab and finds Cecil sitting cross-legged on the bed, wearing only pajama bottoms and going over stories for the show. His third eye is open for once, scanning the pages scattered over the comforter independently as his other two move slowly down the one in his hand. He mutters something around the pen cap in his mouth that sounds like ‘damn armadillos at it again,’ but it couldn’t be ‘damn armadillos at it again,’ could it? Wouldn’t Carlos have heard if they were? He puts it out of his mind for the moment and flops onto his side of the bed with a sigh. Cecil moves a few pages out of the way of his feet, but doesn’t say anything, even when Carlos starts running a finger over the vines that radiate out from the nape of his neck. 

“ _Gardenia aubryi_ ,” he says quietly, tracing a flat white blossom in the shape of a seven-pointed star. “Native to New Caledonia. How does it know a flower from New Caledonia?” Cecil smiles a bit at that, but makes no reply, so Carlos continues along toward his shoulder blades. “ _Paeonia californica_ – _paeonia_ for Paeon –”

“—he was brilliant,” Cecil says, surprising him. “Got turned into a flower for his trouble. Isn’t that just life, though?”

Carlos continues along the swoop of the bone and up over his left shoulder, picking out _hyacinthoides non-scripta_ , _narcissus jonquilla_ , and _dianthus caryophyillus_ , naming them aloud to stretch his horticulture brain. Cecil’s bicep has grown new _ipomoea purpurea_ , and along the inside of his elbow Carlos even finds a few _bellis perennis_ , which look so sunny and bright he wishes he could pluck them out and weave them into a chain. But when he gets to the inside of Cecil’s left forearm, where the tattoos that had been following his hand grew to overtake it, Carlos stops.

“What’s wrong?” Cecil says at once, all three eyes now trained on Carlos’s face. Carlos hadn’t thought he was listening, and finds it difficult to admit out loud.

“I’m…I’m not actually familiar with this species,” he says. And Cecil peers down at his own wrist in wonder.

“Would you look at that?” he says, and even though it isn’t his announcer tone, his voice still makes butterflies dance through Carlos’s stomach. “You’ve gone and made it come up with a new one.” And suddenly he can’t meet any of those three eyes, because the thought of his touch having that much power over Cecil is one he’s never considered, despite the bluebells and the roses and the daisies.

He doesn’t know how it worked, but for the moment he doesn’t mind.


End file.
